the SCENE
January 1, 2021
4 5
When my friend, Cameron Ekstrand, and I decided to bring back e Scene in the
early months of 2020, we underestimated how dicult the process would be. We were moti-
vated and excited to get to work. e issue was, we didn’t know where to start. We had ideas,
but we were also extremely busy with our academic and social lives. Creating a new mag-
azine from scratch seemed like a daunting task, one you tuck away into the corner of your
brain and tell yourself you’ll do eventually, but that scares you o every time you confront it.
e future of e Scene looked uncertain.
en COVID hit.
With the virus came a new normal. A normal where masks became an addition to
your pocket every time you le the house. A normal where FaceTime replaced face-to-face
time. A horribly repetitive, dull, draining normal that beat on everyone’s sanity, slowly but
surely sucking the happiness out of life. Free time - something we all longed for more of
before the pandemic - became a curse. With empty time came empty thoughts, empty emo-
tions, empty feelings. In a way, I felt I was living an empty existence, even aer I returned to
St. Louis for the mostly online fall semester. I needed something to spend my time on, and in
talking to Cameron, I could tell he did as well. e Scene was the answer.
Working on this magazine brought me joy. It helped to pull me out of the endless
gloom that COVID brought on. It was a pleasure geing to interview various members of our
community on what they are passionate about, from music to Marvel, football to font types,
and all things in between. I say cautiously that a sense of optimism seems to be sprouting.
Our country is moving forward. e vaccine is here. And nally, almost a year aer Cam-
eron and I discussed its revival, and over three decades since its inception, e Scene has
returned.
I look ahead to the future. A future where mask use is irrelevant. A future where I can
look at a blackboard and not a computer screen. A future where Big Daddy’s is packed on a
ursday. And a future in which e Scene exists, and the incredible artists, musicians, ath-
letes, intellectuals, and characters that make up our community can be given a platform and
properly appreciated.
We hope you enjoy our work. More importantly, though, we hope this magazine
gives you a new perspective into the remarkable community that is our school. Perhaps the
next time you’re pacing the paths of campus, you’ll look around and realize that everyone
around you has their own story, their own passions, their own talents, and their own place in
the WashU scene.
Onwards we go. We’re almost there.
Jude
In November of 1986, my father, Jason Glashow, along with his best friend, Dave
Levine, published the rst ever issue of e Scene. In the months prior, they had been furi-
ously scraping the project together. What had started as a laid-back alternative to the student
life newspaper quickly evolved into a urry of work. ere were interviews with students
and professors alike, artists who needed convincing to contribute their work, local busi-
nesses to pitch ad space to. Finally, aer a grueling process that required hand-craing each
individual page, e Scene was sent o to a printing press in what is now Danforth Hall. e
rst edition was in black and white, as the press didn’t have color capabilities. Nonetheless,
it took o, and by the time my dad and Dave graduated WashU in 1989, they had completed
seven issues, had dozens of businesses paying for advertisements, and oversaw a full-time
sta of over twenty students.
eir vision, although innovative, was quite simple: create a magazine that revealed
the WashU community to the WashU community. Every day when walking on campus, we
see faces of people we’ve never met before. Odds are you don’t think twice about them.
Washington University is an extraordinary place, lled with unique, talented, and interesting
individuals. For all you know, the kid at the other end of your hall could be a phenomenal
musician. e cute girl in your gen-chem lecture could be a world class painter. e guy with
AirPods who you walk by every Tuesday could’ve lived in ten countries before aending col-
lege. e amount of untold stories at our school is astounding. Jason and Dave recognized
this. Unfortunately, when they graduated, the magazine died o. All that remained were old
copies, tucked away in binders and aics. e stories of WashU alumni were collecting dust
in the dark, perhaps to be read again, perhaps to be forgoen.
When I was growing up, my Dad would occasionally mention e Scene, remember-
ing it as not only a creative accomplishment, but as one of the highlights of his college expe-
rience. My grandma would oen boast on his behalf, saying that e Scene was beer than
most professional magazines. I brushed these claims o, aributing them to a proud, rem-
iniscing mother. It wasn’t until my freshman year at WashU that I actually saw an authentic
copy of the magazine. It truly was impressive. e cover was a collage of dierent colors and
sketches, including cutouts of iconic Delmar locations that existed back in the ‘80s. Inter-
views had pictures of WashU scholars rocking afros and denim ts, professors discussing the
1987 democratic primary, random students casually talking about their interests and pas-
sions. ey even interviewed a Rolling Stone magazine executive who had been in St. Louis
for a conference. What stood out to me the most was the fact that through reading the mag-
azine, I felt as though I was vicariously living in the ‘80s WashU era. e pages brought the
community back to life, over three decades later.
Leer From the Editor
the SCENE
January 1, 2021
CONTENTS
INTERVIEWS
Joshua Johnson: Our featured
artist for this edition. By Cameron
Ekstrand. Page
Lloyd Yates: The starting quar-
terback talks about WashU ath-
letic culture. By Jude Glashow.
Page
Random People: Random peo-
ple talking about random things.
By Cameron Ekstrand. Page
Ben Kiel: A typography profes-
sor talks about how he got into
teaching. By Cameron Ekstrand.
Page
FEATURES
Bands During Covid: How
school bands are dealing with
CoVid. By Jude Glashow. Page
Isolation Housing: Best Birthday
Ever. By Ella Zimmermann. Page
The Suite Life: Zack and Cody
would be jealous. By Bradley
Mellis. Page
Teaching on Zoom: A profes-
sor’s adjustment to online school.
By David Strait. Page
Dave Levine (L) and Jason Glashow (R)
Creators of The Scene
C. 1988
January 1, 2021
9
January 1, 2021
11
CE: What made you choose to go to art
school?
JJ: I never had a favorite subject, but
the one thing that I was really pas-
sionate about was art. Whenever we
had a project and I got the chance to
draw something, I would jump on
the opportunity. So I thought, why
not try it out?
Art school for me came from con-
stantly thinking of what it was I want-
ed to be, and always coming back to
the idea of art. ere’s so many dif-
ferent routes to go within art, and I
don’t think a lot of people take that
into consideration.
CE: What was so interesting about
WashU and Sam Fox?
JJ: Initially, I was going on the graph-
ic design route, because I knew I
didn’t want to be a ne artist. I was
looking for a school with a diverse
range of majors, and looking at Sam
Fox, I saw they had this major called
Communication Design, which was
graphic design with some illustration
elements mixed in, and it seemed
perfect. Visiting WashU as a pro-
spective student, I was struck by
all the resources that students have
across Sam Fox. Not just the incred-
ible facilities, but the professors too.
e professors aren’t just people who
used to draw or design stu, they’re
real professionals in their respective
elds. ey teach and create art at
the same time. It makes them more
credible because as students we can
tell that they know what they’re do-
ing. It’s always really cool seeing the
professors art portfolio presentations
during the rst class, and it lets us
know that our professors truly are
some of the best in the world.
Featured Artist:
Joshua Johnson
by Cameron Ekstrand
Meet Joshua Johnson, a sophomore in
Sam Fox studying Communication De-
sign, and our featured artist for this edi-
tion of e Scene. Growing up in Chi-
cago, Josh fell in love with art through
doodling, and reading superhero comics
and watching superhero movies. When
Jude and I got together and discussed
who we wanted the rst featured artist
of e Scene to be, Josh was a no-brain-
er. He was one of the rst people I met at
WashU, not to mention he was on Jude
and I’s oor last year. I remember tak-
ing a Sam Fox studio class with him our
Freshman spring. Siing next to him
was probably the worst thing I could’ve
done for myself because our work would
always be displayed side by side. As the
professor would go from project to proj-
ect during the class critiques, I could tell
he was subconsciously shaking his head
at the quality of my work relative to
Josh’s. In an interview with e Scene,
Josh touches on how he got into art, how
the pandemic has changed his ability to
make art, and how social issues have
aected him and his work.
the SCENE
January 1, 2021
12 13
surrounded by burning buildings,
and I was front and center. In the
piece, my brain is a cassee tape, and
the lm was just pouring out of my
head. We’ve been rewinding the same
tape, you know, killing black people,
for over four hundred years, and we
can’t do that anymore.
You can’t like my art, and disrespect
me at the same time. ey’re not mu-
tually exclusive. If people would re-
spect and love black people, and all
people, then we’d be in a much beer
place. We’re not asking people to be
colorblind, we want you to acknowl-
edge our skin color and our dierenc-
es. It’s the diversity of people that’s an
integral part of this country. Without
Covid, that piece would have never
been made. I’m not glad Covid hit,
but I’m glad it made everyone have to
focus on this nation’s problems. e
pandemic has given me time to re-
ect on the way things are working in
this country, and that has translated
in art as a form of release for me. Re-
lease from built up emotions, anxiety,
and stress from everything we’ve had
to deal with.
We Can’t Rewind Anymore
June 2020
CE: Do you have any idols or artists/
others that you look up to or try to
model in your work?
JJ: I’d say my main inspiration is Stan
Lee. I’ve always liked superheroes,
they’re my thing. e whole marvel
style of creating characters has al-
ways inspired me, not just from the
way that they appear, but also from
the way the audience is able to con-
nect with them. A lot of times I never
really know what to draw, I just know
that I want people to be able to feel
that same connection to my artwork
that Stan Lee gets with his comics.
For example, my favorite superhero
is Spiderman.
CE: Why Spiderman?
JJ: You know, the costume is very
simple, and Peter Parker is just a reg-
ular person on the inside. e char-
acter faces hate
and gets bullied since nobody knows
that he’s secretly saving the city. It lets
the audience know that just because
these people may appear to be per-
fect– they look cool, they have super
powers– doesn’t mean they don’t face
similar struggles to the rest of us. It
makes the Marvel characters human.
CE: How has being stuck at home
during the pandemic aected your abil-
ity to create art?
JJ: Covid really opened a lot of peo-
ple’s eyes to the things that are hap-
pening in this country on a variety
of levels. Like, we had to ght to get
free Covid testing. You’d think this
wouldn’t be something we’d need to
ght for, but here we are. is sum-
mer, more social issues were brought
to light. Systemic racism, needless
police brutality, white supremacy.
e world was forced to watch now
that everyone was stuck in quaran-
tine.
Before, people could turn away or
hide from the controversy, but not
anymore. Us black people, we’ve
never had the chance to look away,
we don’t get a chance to turn that
blind eye, because it’s us. Just walk-
ing around, it’s like we have a target
on our backs. Because of covid peo-
ple are seeing what we’ve had to deal
with all our lives.
CE: How has the state of the country
aected you and your work?
JJ: I hit a low point this summer, not
because of the strict quarantine or
whatever, but because of the seem-
ingly endless murders. I mean, things
just kept geing worse, black people
just kept geing abused, kept dy-
ing. By June, I was exhausted, being
forced to watch my people geing
killed for no reason. ese events
caused me to make art. One piece I
made pictured a group of protestors
Just Be Beer.
August 2020
Same Phrase, Dierent Ways
November 2020
the SCENE
January 1, 2021
14 15
pandemic. “You’re looking for a safe
place to have fun, for excitement, and
this is denitely a good outlet for it”
says Dotun Taiwo, the drummer.
e new basement-band standard is
a drastic change from last year, when
practicing was as easy as reserving
a room for a couple of hours. Ac-
cording to members of Faced Out, a
punk-rock band of sophomores, the
amount of possible practices this se-
mester has been cut down to a frac-
tion of what they were last year. “Last
year we got to practice all the time,
like three times a week for two hours,
which was great” said Jaden Vest, the
lead singer, as he explained how now
they were limited to whenever their
friend allowed them to use his base-
ment. As for the condition of said
basement? “Well, it’s what we ex-
pected,” said Vest, as the rest of the
band chuckled.
For Faced Out, not only have prac-
tices been cut down, but live per-
formances, which were plentiful last
year, are now too dangerous to par-
ticipate in. “We actually had a lot of
people hiing us up to play gigs, we
probably played one gig a week” Vest
said of last year. But unfortunately,
when Covid rst broke out in March,
Faced Out had to cancel shows they
had scheduled for the spring. “I had
to call a bunch of people, cause Covid
wasn’t bad (in Missouri) yet” Vest
continued. “e DIY scene was still
doing shows for a while in the spring.
I had to call them and tell them we
can’t play at the shows because we
won’t be here, which they under-
stood, but it was just unfortunate. It
was sad.”
In the depths of quarantine follow-
ing the March outbreak, e Same
Boat had no way to play, as all it’s
members went back to their homes
across the country for the remain-
der of the spring semester. Faced Out
tried playing together virtually, but
no soware was good enough to even
come close to imitating an in-per-
son practice. American Poetry Club
(APC), however, had experience
with long-distance playing. Made
up of recently graduated WashU stu-
dents, APC had been sending les
and sharing documents for months
before the pandemic, and the group
had already started making the tran-
sition to being a virtual band. “If
anything, Covid brought everyone
else to our level” said Jordan Wein-
stock, the guitarist and lead singer.
As a result, quarantine was less of a
hindrance and more of a motivator
for the APC. By sending each part
of a song to each other, the creative
process became more interactive
and precise, despite the distance be-
tween band members. “It was a lot
more cohesive because people could
really take the time to esh out their
individual parts, like I want this ex-
act note to hit right here, as you have
the recording and can do it as many
times as you want” said Sang-Jin Lee,
the drummer.
Overall, all three bands expressed
surprising optimism in such gloomy
times. e Same Boat found that
their residential neighborhood ven-
ue has resulted in some unexpected
fans. “Our neighbors love us, they
gave us doughnuts the last time we
played because you can hear every-
thing outside” said Dobmeier. Faced
Out explained how quarantine al-
lowed them to properly polish their
ideas for their upcoming album, in-
sisting that the current version is a
greater expression of their creative
output, and is signicantly beer
than if the pandemic hadn’t forced
them apart. “I think it’s been a bless-
ing in disguise, in that facet” said
Jonah Spencer, the electric bassist.
And quarantine for American Po-
etry Club led to their biggest break
yet, gaining thousands of streams on
Spotify due to a Youtube cover artist.
“We just got lucky a bunch of times,
and Covid was one of those times.
is kid Wilbur Soot who is a Twitch
streamer and Youtuber covered one
of our songs” said Weinstock. Wilbur
Soot currently has 2.56 million You-
tube subscribers, and the cover video
has over 350,000 views.
Faced Out
e apartment is located on Pershing
Avenue, and the basement is, well,
college-esque, you could say. Going
down a curved splintered staircase
reveals chipped concrete walls lined
with old boxes and broken furniture.
One laundry machine and one dry-
er, used by upwards of twelve peo-
ple, sits in the middle of the room.
Natural light is nonexistent. A drum
kit with sweatshirts over the snare
and toms, in a futile eort to prevent
noise complaints, sits in the corner,
while a wooden stool combined with
a crate, a broom and some duct-tape
cras a makeshi mic stand. is
“dank-ass basement,” as described by
bassist Ma Dobmeir, is the week-
ly meeting place of e Same Boat,
a cover band composed of current
and graduated Sigma Nu’s. While
Covid may have sapped up the en-
ergy of some students, members of
e Same Boat have found that they
look forward to practicing together
every Friday at 5 PM. “If anything,
I think playing together is benecial
to us” says Ashwin Govindan, the
guitarist. “We have nothing else to
do and are all commied to playing
with each other for a couple hours
every Friday.” With on-campus stu-
dios closed for the semester, bands
have been forced to nd new places
to play. e basement has essential-
ly become a release for members of
e Same Boat, allowing them to
nd some entertainment amidst the
Stages to Cellars:
The State of WashU Bands During Coronavirus
by Jude Glashow
Bands ght. From e Beach Boys to e Beatles, challenges arise within groups that are sometimes irreconcilable. In the
bazaar year of 2020, however, WashU bands found themselves ghting a foe far more dangerous than creative dierences: a
global pandemic. Within a maer of months, issues such as not having enough time to practice evolved into whether or not it
was safe enough to meet up and play. Live performances became hazardous and hard to come by. Albums came to a screech-
ing halt, and promising opportunities were swept away as the world adjusted to a new normal. Yet talking to WashU student
bands revealed that even amidst the most dicult year in decades, the band, quite literally, will play on.
e Same Boat
the SCENE
January 1, 2021
16 17
We’ve all had to nd our ways to
cope with the overhanging, omni-
present existence of Covid. While
some of us may have found it di-
cult to keep up with our passions,
it is encouraging to see members of
our community nding ways to work
around the roadblocks of Covid. At
the end of the day, bands just want to
play, and the pandemic has proven to
be an unworthy adversary to that de-
sire. “Regardless of if we even play in
front of anyone else besides the peo-
ple that live here and the neighbors,
it’s just fun” said Govindan of e
Same Boat. “Music is good. ere’s
something good about music.”
American Poetry Club
the SCENE
January 1, 2021
18 19
“Hello?”
“Hi, is this Ella? I’m calling in regard to your recent
COVID test… it was positive.”
My stomach dropped. I immediately stopped in my
tracks. at meant ten more days of isolation, adding up
to a semester total of 24 days in quarantine. I was dev-
astated that I not only had to miss out on more of my
freshman fall, but that I had to spend both anksgiv-
ing and my birthday in isolation. I was at-out shocked.
I didn’t understand how I could be testing positive if I
had already quarantined for two weeks, received a neg-
ative test, and exhibited no symptoms. I realized that I
must have developed it while in my rst quarantine. e
more I thought about it, the angrier I got that I had not
been retested sooner. If I had been tested just days ear-
lier, I might not have had to spend anksgiving and my
birthday in isolation. Furthermore, even though I was as-
ymptomatic, I was scared that I could get really sick. I
had heard of kids losing their senses of smell and taste
for months. I was even more scared of spreading the vi-
rus to others. I frantically rethought my last few days and
reassured myself that I had taken enough precautions to
protect those around me. Nevertheless, I was terried.
at aernoon, I scrambled to pack (yet again) for the
next ten days. I threw my sweatpants and school neces-
sities in a suitcase and called the COVID transportation
service to take me to Millbrook. A few minutes later, a
school van arrived outside my dorm. I was the only pas-
senger, and I sat in the very last row to minimize the
driver’s exposure. When we arrived, the driver dropped
me o in the pouring rain to call WUPD, who let me in-
side the building. Once let in, I collected myMillbrook
4b key from the mailbox. I could not for the life of me
nd Millbrook 4b. I ran circles outside the buildings in
the rain, lugging my suitcase with a broken wheel behind
me. I nally entered a building but couldn’t nd my room
until I spoed the brown bags of food labeled with my
name outside my door. Inside, my accommodations were
actually quite nice. I had an eight person suite all to my-
self, equipped with a kitchen, dining and living area, two
bathrooms, a balcony, and my dorm room. e rst cou-
ple days went by quickly. I kept myself busy with school
work, Tik Tok, and netix. I looked forward to picking
up my food bags and seeing what dessert from Cher-
ry Tree I got each time. e school was even courteous
enough to give me a coloring book as a “welcome to iso-
lation” gi, which I actually used.
en anksgiving came. e school delivered a special
anksgiving dinner complete with turkey, stung, veg-
etables, and an assortment of mini pastries for dessert.
While it was not a home cooked meal, the food was hon-
estly prey good. I ate and FaceTimed my friends who
were also spending anksgiving in quarantine (thanks
to me). We talked about how we would usually spend our
anksgiving, with good food, good laughs, and good
company. Even though it was sad to be alone, I knew that
this anksgiving was unusual for everyone, regardless
of being isolated or not. It was as enjoyable as it could be
under the circumstances.
e next day was November 27th. My Birthday. Instead
of waking up to a breakfast with my friends, I woke up
alone to some sort of lukewarm quiche le at the door of
my suite. However, I do think that I got more aention
that day than on any of my previous birthdays, which I
suppose was one of the pros of everyone feeling bad for
me. I kept my sanity by constantly talking to people on
the phone and having my own movie marathon. e next
day, I got an entire pizza and balloons delivered to my
door. My younger sister was able to contact a campus
delivery service and got me the delayed birthday treat,
which was a very nice break from the brown bag dining
hall dinners.
Slowly but surely, however, I started to go a lile cra-
zy. e eects of 24 days in quarantine were starting
to catch up to me. I lost all motivation to do my school
work, exercise, even to pick up my food at the door. I
barely even felt like talking to people on the phone. I felt
A COVID-19th Birthday:
My Experience in WashU Isolation Housing
by Ella Zimmermann
When WashU rst announced that students would not
be allowed to return to campus if they travelled home for
anksgiving, I was genuinely excited to spend the holi-
day with new friends. We started brainstorming how we
could make anksgiving at school special and COVID
safe, whether by ordering food, going out, or renting a
house. Geing the virus was not part of the plan.
In early November, my suitemate tested positive for
COVID, resulting in the rest of my suite and me being
contact-traced. I got tested ve days aer my exposure
and was negative, but because I was contact-traced I still
had to quarantine. My suitemate/best friend and I were
terried of the school isolation housing, so while we were
waiting for our Habif phone calls, we researched places
to quarantine o-campus. Luckily, we were able to nd
an aordable two bedroom house to stay in for the next
two weeks. e house was big enough that we would each
have our own space, and compared to the alternative of
complete isolation, the rental was almost like paradise. In
fact, isolation was almost like a vacation, except instead
of siing on a beach, I spent the majority of my time
catching up on schoolwork during the especially busy
pre-thanksgiving midterm period. It was nice to have
that free time and a break from campus life. I got to cook
for myself, aempt to workout, go on walks, and relax.
Aer two weeks, however, I was very much ready to get
back to campus. Believe it or not, I was starting to miss
the salad vending machines and mid-tier sushi. I was re-
leased on the Saturday before anksgiving break, just in
time to spend the holiday, and my birthday (the day aer
anksgiving) out of quarantine. I thought I was prey
much in the clear since I previously tested negative and
had no symptoms. My assigned Covid contact at Habif
told me that I just had to get tested again on Monday, two
days later, as a mandatory reentry test.
My test result came the Tuesday before anksgiving.
While walking through BD, I got a phone call from a St.
Louis area code. inking it would be a spam call, I an-
swered nonchalantly.
the SCENE
January 1, 2021
20 21
Interview With the Starting Quarterback
by Jude Glashow
On television, being the starting quarterback at a college means being at the pinnacle of the social hierarchy. e guys envy
him, and the girls giggle and whisper when he walks by. He can’t go anywhere without being stared at, but being the king of
the jocks, he doesn’t mind. He dons his varsity jacket proudly, soaks up the aention, and lives it up. Unfortunately, WashU
isn’t exactly Friday Night Lights. We don’t even have a ranked college football program in the entire state of Missouri. You’ve
probably never even seen a WashU football game, and you almost certainly can’t name the starting quarterback. So I asked
myself: who is our QB this year, and what is it like playing for a school with such abysmal spirit that it’s almost comical? I
was able to get in touch with Lloyd Yates, a Northwestern transfer currently at the helm of our football program. Lloyd knows
that the Bears don’t have an army of supporters, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He’s humble, hardworking, and couldn’t care
less if you don’t know who he is. He just wants to win.
JG: Tell me a lile bit about yourself.
LY: My name’s Lloyd Yates. I’m from Chicago and I’m
in the class of ‘22. I played undergrad football at North-
western, had some eligibility le, and decided I wanted
to get my MBA and WashU was a perfect t. I’m doing
business and enjoying St. Louis so far.
JG: You’re originally from St. Louis, right?
LY: Yeah, I was born here. I was here for not long, may-
be the rst ve years of my life, but I’ve known about St.
Louis schools for a while, so WashU is nothing new.
JG: How did you originally get into football?
LY: rough summer camps. In Chicago summer, there’s
Chicago park district camps. We would play all types of
sports, and I just noticed I was beer at football and had
the most fun playing it, so I’d say around 4th or 5th grade
I realized wow, I like football.
JG: I assume you played all through middle and high school.
What did the recruiting process look like for you when you
were in high school?
tired all the time, even though I spent my days doing ab-
solutely nothing. My last few days really tested my pa-
tience. Time moved slower than I ever could have imag-
ined, and that must mean something coming from an ex
calculus student. I eventually made it out and started to
feel back to normal. Even though isolation sucked, I tru-
ly am grateful that I came out healthy and that no one
else got sick because of me. With millions suering at the
hands of COVID, my slight frustration with a long quar-
antine was comparatively insignicant. However, it does
go to show that this pandemic has eects even larger than
physical health. We all know the physical risks of COVID
very well, but not everyone recognizes the eect it can
have on mental health. I know that the people at Habif
did their best to make me comfortable, and dining ser-
vices did everything they could to make sure everyone
in quarantine had a real anksgiving meal, so I cannot
thank them enough.
I endured one of my favorite holidays and my nineteenth
birthday in quarantine. It was rough, but I can tell you
there are worse possibilities. Overall, I would not recom-
mend a ten-day vacation to Millbrook, although it does
make a good story to tell.
the SCENE
January 1, 2021
22 23
there. Everyone at Northwestern has crazy SATs, ACTs,
GPAs, so I felt like there was a stigma that some people
felt like we didn’t belong, but overall, I would say the rec-
ognition was overwhelmingly loving. We were cool with
prey much everybody.
JG: I never really thought about it that way, that some people
might almost be bier at the athletes.
LY: Yeah, in a way. ere was a balance though, like some
people thought it was really cool, like I had classmates
who once they found out I was scholarship quarterback,
you know, they were just excited to be in class and do
stu together. But I also saw the opposite, where some
kids could give a rats ass and probably thought I didn’t
even deserve to be there. I just tried to play it cool. If you
want to talk about it, we can talk, if not, we can talk about
whatever the fuck we’re doing in class.
JG: Why did you decide to come to WashU?
LY: Well, I graduated Northwestern early and still had
athletic eligibility on the table. So when I was deciding
where I should go for academics and where I could uti-
lize my eligibility, I wanted to go to a place that was super
welcoming and that wanted to compete and win. I didn’t
really care if it was D1, D2, D3. I also wanted to go to a
place that wanted me to play quarterback. At Northwest-
ern, I played wide receiver and quarterback. When I was
looking, I could’ve gone elsewhere and played receiv-
er, but I didn’t want to play receiver, I’m a quarterback.
WashU embraced me as a quarterback, it’s a great school,
great program, and guys just want to ball and win.
JG: How does D3 compare to D1 football?
LY: I would say the biggest dierence is size. Size and
speed. In my experience so far, the whole squad works
hard, they work their asses o, they’re ballers. But in D1,
they’re a couple inches taller and a couple dozen pounds
bigger. So yeah, just size. D1 is also a lile bit more in-
tense, which is what you would expect.
JG: What have you thought so far about the school spirit and
support for football at WashU?
LY: It’s probably not there. I went to a WashU game last
year and I wasn’t impressed by the fans or the aendance
or anything. So I don’t know, that’s something I hope I
can add value to, I hope I can bring the team to a new
level. From my experience of being around guys who are
in the NFL, I can bring that knowledge, expertise, ener-
gy, hopefully I can bring it here. And if we start balling
out, winning games, maybe we can galvanize the student
body and the community and get them behind us.
JG: Have you ever been recognized on campus at WashU as a
LY: When I was a freshman, we got a new coach from a
Chicago powerhouse football school, so he was able to
bring in more recruiters to view us, and then I was also
fortunate enough to have a few guys in the year above me
go D1, so I was kinda just in this funnel being built. All I
really worried about was geing beer and trying to win
states. Playing at the next level was just a byproduct of
that.
JG: Did you have any interest in leaving the midwest for col-
lege?
LY: Man, I was trying to go to Florida or Cali, like Cal
Berkley or something dierent. I was trying to get out,
but at the time, Northwestern was a no-brainer. My Dad
and my brother went there, and it’s close to home, so I
said if I was to get an oer from Northwestern, I’d go. But
I denitely had dreams of going to a crazy far school.
JG: Did your dad and brother play football at Northwestern?
LY: No, but my brother was on the drumline. He’s much
older than me, but when I was a lile kid, we would go
to the games and see him in the drumline, and that was a
cool experience for me growing up. But they weren’t ath-
letes.
JG: What was it like playing division 1 football?
LY: It was intense. It’s fun though, because it’s a lot of
work. A majority of your days are spent around your
teammates, or doing team activities, meetings, workouts,
practice, so it just kinda consumes your life. You learn to
t everything around your football schedule. It’s intense.
Practice was intense, the coaches were intense. But it
was a really unique experience to have because it builds
character in a way that can’t be found in that many places
in my opinion. You get to learn to work in teams and be
with really diverse people. Overall, it was a really awe-
some experience. Having winning seasons, winning bowl
games. ere’s nothing beer than winning a bowl game.
JG: What bowl games did you win?
LY: We won the Pinstripe Bowl and the Music City bowl.
We lost the Outback Bowl, but every year I was there, we
went to a bowl game. It was prey dope.
JG: Did any of your teammates that you played with move
on to the NFL?
LY: I’ve got a few teammates that play. A couple that play
for the Packers, the Colts, the Chargers, I think one of my
teammates actually plays on the Patriots, Dan Vitale. e
Giants, and Cowboys, I would say about a dozen in total.
JG: When you were playing with those guys, did everyone
know they were going to the next level?
LY: ere was a consensus around the guys we knew
knew, but some guys really made a name for themselves.
I have a teammate on the Broncos, he’s had a prey great
career for the Broncos, but I don’t think people thought
he would be able to do what he is doing. Some guys work
super hard and are able to beat out everyone.
JG: Do you feel that football either here or at Northwestern
obstructed any other aspects of your college experience?
LY: So, no. You’re asking from my perspective, but I think
it can and does for other people. I notice that at D1, you’re
kind of in this athlete bubble, it’s just like you’re around
all athletes, so if you don’t try and make an eort, you
won’t get the full experience. Indulging in class, hanging
out with other students, doing stu with them. I would
say It’s very common that a lot of kids don’t do that, but I
made an active eort not to be constrained by that.
JG: At Northwestern, obviously football is way bigger there.
What did recognition look like on campus?
LY: It was a tricky balance I think because most people
knew who the athletes were, most athletes had a dier-
ent vibe, they were bigger dudes, they wore football gear
and whatnot. I also think there was a stigma around ath-
letes that I tried to avoid that athletes didn’t deserve to be
the SCENE
January 1, 2021
24 25
quarterback or football player?
LY: Well, I found out one of my MBA classmates is also
on the football team, so he found out, but besides that,
no.
JG: I wouldn’t say that counts considering you guys are
teammates.
LY: (laughs) Well we didn’t know we were teammates, so
it was interesting. But no, not really.
JG: What would be your pitch to an average WashU student
to come to a football game?
LY: I’ve never thought of a pitch. I would say come watch
our football games, this year we’re competing for a cham-
pionship, it’s gonna be the most fun season in WashU
football history.
JG: at got me hyped up, maybe I’ll show up for a game or
two.
LY: (laughs) at’s the thing man, I’m no motivational
speaker. I just do the work.
Shortly aer this interview, Lloyd had to step away from
football for personal reasons. We wish him the best and hope
to see him back out on the eld soon.
the SCENE
January 1, 2021
26 27
CE: What was it like playing tennis in a
military high school?
DS: I played JV my rst two year of
high school when I was in the States.
In Japan, I was on varsity for both
years. Last year, I got to go to Japan’s
version of Nationals where all the
military schools and international
schools send students to play in Oki-
nawa, another island o Japan, which
was super fun. en, in my very last
match of my high school career I ac-
tually pinched my sciatic nerve. I re-
ally ended o high school tennis with
a bang, because now I can’t play ten-
nis anymore. I can only play really
slow games now.
CE: What kind of work are you doing?
DS: I work for Brainly, if you’ve
heard of it. It’s like a homework help
site. When I was in middle school,
I became a volunteer moderator on
the site. A few years ago they brought
me on as an intern, and just this week
actually I got promoted to part-time,
so I make money now, which is cool.
I basically just manage the modera-
tion team and do a lot of recruitment
work. Our tagline is that it’s peer-
based learning. Other students can
answer questions but there are also
thousands of teachers and profes-
sionals on the site that go around and
answer questions. Moderators also
help answer questions.
CE: Tell me about how you got interest-
ed in environmental studies.
DS: My sophomore year in high
school I took AP Environmental Sci-
ence, not by choice, since AP Biology
and AP Chemistry weren’t oered at
my school that year, and it was the
last AP that t into my schedule. It
ended up being probably my favorite
class throughout high school. I had a
really great teacher and I thought the
topics were interesting.
CE: How has your rst semester of col-
lege been considering Covid and all?
DS: Kinda sad. I live on an Air Force
base, and there are probably ten
college students on the entire base.
Two of my senior year stay here too,
so we hang out, but I haven’t been
able to make any friends on campus
at WashU. In terms of my classes,
I would say 7/10. I’m doing okay, it
would probably be beer if I could
do them in person. I had to do on-
line school for my last semester of
high school so I was a bit used to it
already.
Pedro Gomez
Freshman
Major: PNP
Pedro has moved around a lot. Aer
being born in Florida, he moved to Vir-
ginia, spent a few years in Puerto Rico,
and then most recently lived in Colom-
bia. He then studied abroad in Beijing
and got rst hand experience of what
it’s like to live in China during a pan-
demic.
CE: How did you get interested In
PNP?
PG: I’ve always been really interest-
ed in science classes. In high school
I had this opportunity to have what
was basically an internship at a hos-
pital, and we were put in rotations,
working with dierent areas of the
hospital. e most interesting parts
for me were the psychiatry and
neuroscience sections. I also loved
my psychology classes during high
school, so everything on my resume
was pushing me towards PNP.
CE: What was it like growing up in dif-
ferent countries?
PG: It was a really great experience
overall. It can be tough, because, you
know, you make friends, you have
to leave them, but it’s been really
great geing to know dierent plac-
es. Growing up in dierent countries
really gives you a much more expan-
sive, deeper world view. You can use
your experiences in dierent places,
and compare them to make inter-
esting connections and learn more
about dierent cultures and places,
which I personally really like.
CE: How has the transition from China
to St. Louis been aer having lived in
Colombia prior?
PG: Since I have experience living
abroad by myself, it wasn’t that tough
for me. It’s much easier for me to
adapt to dierent places. It’s the rst
time I’ve lived in the US since grow-
ing up in Virginia when I was really
lile. It’s been cool geing to know St.
Louis because I’ve never been to the
midwest before. In terms of meeting
people, with Covid and all, it’s prey
tough. I’m enrolled in the Rodriguez
Scholarship Program, so I’ve been
making close friends with the other
people in that program, which has
been super helpful. It would’ve been
much tougher if it weren’t for that
program. Right now I see the same
people everyday in class so I can
form deeper connections with them.
CE: What was living in China like
during Covid?
PG: It was super fascinating. I was
living in Beijing, which is an insane-
ly government run city. e govern-
ment literally controls everything
over there; you can see all the sur-
veillance and military presence. I was
Random People
by Cameron Ekstrand
Danica Setka
Freshman
Major: Environmental Biology and
Environmental Policy
Danica participated in this interview
from Japan, where her father is current-
ly stationed in the military. She loves to
bake and play tennis, and spends some
of her free time working for a website.
When asked who the three people she
would want to have a conversion with
would be, she answered Bill Nye, Gor-
don Ramsey, and Harry Styles because
“the vibes in that room with all three of
them would be insane.”
CE: Tell me about what it’s like living
abroad.
DS: My dad was stationed in Ja-
pan right before my Junior year in
high school and I’ve been stuck here
since. I wasn’t ready to go back to
the states given the condition they’re
currently in, so I’m just doing re-
mote asynchronous class for now.
CE: What are some other countries
you’ve lived in?
DS: e only other country I’ve lived
in, not including the US, was Germa-
ny. I lived there fourth through sixth
grade and it was very cool, I liked it
a lot.
CE: What was it like growing up with
a parent in the military and moving
around a lot?
DS: It was prey tough. When you
move every two years, you have to
adapt to a new environment real-
ly quickly just to get taken out of it.
Making new friends at all these dif-
ferent schools became challenging
and I had to learn to be really adapt-
able to have a good school experi-
ence. On the ip side, moving around
and seeing a bunch of dierent plac-
es, seeing historical sites and all, has
made me a more well-rounded and
cultured person.
CE: What was high school like on a
military base?
DS: I went to high school on base.
Just the kids of people in the military,
so Americans, and then the kids of
Japanese contractors that work on
the base went there too. It was a real-
ly small, tight knit community, lots of
school spirit.
Back in the 1980s, when cell phones were obsolete, staers of e Scene would ip through the now extinct WashU phone-
book, jabbing their ngers down sporadically onto the pages. Whomever the nger revealed underneath would be dialed, in-
terviewed, and featured in the upcoming issue of the magazine. ey could’ve been a genius, a bum, the most interesting girl
in Olin, or the dullest dude on the South 40. It didn’t maer. e randomness was the point. Jude and I knew we had to keep
this tradition running when we rebooted, but without an ocial phonebook for the school, we had to improvise. rough a
combination of random name generators, the online school directory, and command-F, we found our random peers, reached
out to them via email, and interviewed those willing about their lives. Who knows; if you’re lucky, maybe your rst name and
last initial will be spat out by the generator for the next edition. A lot of people didn’t respond though. Please respond if we
email you. It’s cool to be a part of this shit, even if you think you’re lame.
the SCENE
January 1, 2021
28 29
Heidi David
Junior
Major: BioChemistry
Heidi has a very fun and bubbly per-
sonality, made clear by the three things
she says she’d bring if she was stranded
on an island: sunscreen, a pool oaty,
and a vlog camera. In our interview,
Heidi talked about her plans aer grad-
uation and how she became involved
with cheerleading at WashU.
CE: How did you get interested in Bio-
Chem?
HD: I came into WashU as pre-med
because I was good at science in high
school and most people who are in-
terested in science go into pre-med. I
ended up taking organic chemistry at
WashU, which I really didn’t want to
take since everyone says it’s so scary,
but I ended up loving it. It was at that
point that I realized that science and
pre-med was something I wanted to
do. I also really liked the Biology as-
pect of it, specically the chemistry
that happens in our bodies, so Bio-
Chem seemed perfect.
CE: Do you have any idea of what you
want to do when you graduate?
HD: Not really yet. I’m taking the
MCAT in January, so I feel like it
might apply to medical school. But I
really don’t know yet because I can’t
see myself as a real adult yet. I would
like to be a doctor, but I’m not 100%
sure, and it seems like one of those
jobs where you need to be commit-
ted. Being an epidemiologist would
be really cool too, especially now
with Covid, also, drug chemistry is
fascinating to me. I’m mainly taking
the MCAT so that I can keep the op-
tion of medical school open to me.
CE: Anything else at WashU you’ve
been involved in?
HD: I’m a cheerleader here, which
is really fun, and also unexpect-
ed because I never cheered in
high school or anything. I was in
a sorority up until this summer.
CE: What got you into cheer?
HD: I’ve always wanted to be in a
cheerleader, kind of in a dumb, mov-
ie-type way. When I got here, WashU
was very academically focused, and
it seemed like everything I did was
centered around school or future
jobs. So I randomly decided to try
out for cheer. I really didn’t think
I was going to make it, I’m not the
best dancer or anything. But I end-
ed up making it and became real-
ly good friends with the girls on the
team so I just decided to stick with it.
CE: What do you guys do as cheerlead-
ers?
HD: We do football and mens and
women’s basketball. You know, it’s a
D3 school, so we do a lot of cheers
that are like, “Alright guys, say this”
and nobody says anything, and we’re
just like… ok cool. It’s still really fun
though because I love the other girls
on the team.
CE: What’s your best memory from
WashU so far?
HD: Let’s see. Something I real-
ly liked was that we did this thing
called Anchor Splash for my sorori-
ty, which was a synchronized swim-
ming contest where we got to coach a
team and I had a lot of fun doing that.
Also, freshman year I went to a for-
mal out of town in Nashville which
was awesome.
CE: Were you home over quarantine?
there during my rst semester in the
fall of 2019 and aer that was when
Covid hit. I was able to see all the
policies they put forth within Beijing.
ey did a massive, super strict lock-
down where there was surveillance
everywhere. ey could track you
down with facial recognition to make
sure you didn’t violate the quarantine
measures. It’s also interesting to see
the censorship of a lot of information
by the Chinese government. Having
a rst hand experience and not need-
ing to rely on the media to tell you
what’s going on was super fascinating.
CE: What’s the coolest place you’ve
traveled to and what’s one place on your
bucket list that you hope to go some-
day?
PG: I really liked Munich. e lay-
out of the city is prey cool. It’s a
pedestrian city where you can walk
anywhere, but there’s also a lot of
public transportation. e architec-
ture is super nice. Bavaria in gener-
al is really beautiful, the mountain
scenery, the food, you name it. It’s
all amazing. One place on my buck-
et list is Eastern Europe, as I’ve only
ever been to Western Europe. I really
want to take a road trip around that
side of the continent one day.
the SCENE
January 1, 2021
30 31
the app, and if their city is on lock-
down, they won’t be able to leave
without scanning. If you want to buy
something, it is sensed by the govern-
ment with the QR codes. ere are
side eects to this, though. If there is
a city with few cases, if someone tests
positive, then everyone on the inter-
net will know exactly where that per-
son has been. ey have no privacy,
and it seems a bit crazy to me.
CE: How did you choose Math +CS
and PNP?
HZ: I’m not that interested in empir-
ical sciences like Biology and Chem-
istry. I’m more interested in formal
systems. If you’re asking me to mod-
el the syntax of the whole world, or
to develop a theoretic structure of a
eld, those are questions that inter-
est me. I’m also fascinated by the way
people think. I like studying ques-
tions like: Why do people move from
modernism to postmodernism? Why
do paintings look like this? I’m taking
the linguistics path in the PNP major
because I’m interested in language
too. I mentioned that I like formal
systems. It’s inspiring to me to treat
our mind as a formal system itself.
For example, how is a dog represent-
ed in our mind? How does our brain
know that something is a dog and not
a horse. Combining Math+CS with
PNP is a good way for me to study
formal systems while also geing the
chance to study how people think.
CE: What’s it like taking two majors
and a minor?
HZ: It’s ne for me. I take one course
for each department of my majors,
so it’s never too much of the same
thing. If I feel like I’m geing tired of
one area I can easily turn to another
area. I still have plenty of free time
to hang out for my friends. I sing in
the choir and I’m in the philosophy
and Japanese society clubs. Obvi-
ously I’m Chinese but I’m still very
interested in Japanese culture. I have
a lot of respect for Japanese culture
and I’m interested in studying it. We
get to make sushi and study their lan-
guage. I used to be in badminton and
table tennis clubs, but not this year
because of Covid. Overall, though,
taking two majors hasn’t been too
rigorous.
CE: What makes you want to take a
gap year or semester at some point?
HZ: It’s denitely due to Covid. I
much prefer in-person meetings and
classes, so by taking some time o,
I’m making sure that I still get plenty
of time to have a normal college ex-
perience. Also, I’m taking two majors
and have explored many academic
elds, so by taking a gap year I get to
have more time to nd out what area
ts me best. Finally, since I’m Chi-
nese, a gap year would give me time
to do some volunteer work in Amer-
ica and get a beer feel for what the
US is like outside of college.
What was it like over the pandemic?
HD: I was. It was hard being home. I
love being home, and I love my fam-
ily, but I think our relationship has
ourished since I’ve been in college
and had the chance to live and grow
on my own. So over quarantine, I was
sharing a room with my lile sister,
and I always had to get permission
from my parents before doing cer-
tain things. Some of my friends invit-
ed me on a road trip, and if I was at
school I would go in a heartbeat and
call my parents aerwards, but since
I was living at home I had to get their
permission to go, and they wouldn’t
let me. at was hard. Also, being
in Atlanta was odd because it wasn’t
shut down at all. We were shut down
in April, and then opened back up in
May. Some of my friends from high
school would ask me if I wanted to go
out with them some nights, as if there
wasn’t a global pandemic happening.
CE: What’s your favorite book?
HD: I really like the Harry Poer
series. I read them so much growing
up, and I think J.K. Rowling is such
a good author. I love any trashy teen
romance novel.
CE: What about vlogging and making
videos appeals to you?
HD: I like to think that my life is
prey interesting. I think most days
I have something dumb or exciting
happen to me which would be cool
to have on video to look back on. I
take the Metro to work in the lab on
the medical campus and I see a lot
of strange things that would be fun-
ny to have on video. e lile fun-
ny elements in my life just make me
think vlogging is cool. Also it’s crazy
how some people are so famous from
vlogging these days. Girls will record
themselves making iced coee on Tik
Tok and people think it’s incredible
and they get a million likes.
Herbert Zhou
Junior
Major: Math+CS and PNP and a
Minor in Music
Herbert is an incredibly intriguing per-
son. He’s lived in Shanghai his whole
life, coming to WashU for his freshman
year. While he doesn’t have any stick-
ers on his laptop, he says that if he were
to add any stickers, he would choose to
“juxtapose Monet’s Rouen Cathedral
with a formal symbol– demonstrating
his nature of arts and sciences.”
CE: What was it like growing up in
China and then moving to the US for
college?
HZ: More and more international
students are taking college in Amer-
ica, and I’m just one of them. China
and the US are two very dierent
countries. e most interesting part
for me is that my belief system has
changed based on what I’ve experi-
enced in both countries. Everyone
knows China is famous for its Com-
munist policies. I was the class mon-
itor in my middle school in China.
By that point I kind of understood
what Communism truly means. I en-
joyed being a class monitor because
it was my chance to contribute to my
community and make my communi-
ty more ecient, so I felt like I was
helping the Communist culture. Aer
coming to America, I got to experi-
ence another social structure. Peo-
ple here in the US are encouraged to
have their own voices and individual
identities, but that is not the case in
China. I had never thought about my
own identity and voice before I came
to America.
CE: If you’re encouraged to have your
own voice and identity here in the US,
what are you encouraged to be in Chi-
na?
HZ: We aren’t very individualized in
China. Growing up in China felt like
a circular process. At the end of pri-
mary school we were encouraged to
take hard classes to get into a good
middle school, and then the same
thing for high school. e people I
grew up with are more alike one an-
other than here in America, where
everyone has their own identity.
CE: Are you currently in China?
HZ: No, I’m in St. Louis right now.
CE: Have you lived in China during
quarantine?
HZ: No, but my family has.
CE: What has life been like for them?
HZ: So my family is currently in
Shanghai, and it’s not that dangerous
right now there, because the Chinese
government has made lots of policies
to control the pandemic. I actually
think the Chinese policies are more
ecient than what America is do-
ing. Shanghai is doing well, but some
smaller cities are struggling. I read
this morning that 500 doctors were
sent to a smaller city to help with the
pandemic, and China tends to act
quickly to control covid.
CE: What are some other examples of
how China is mandating quarantine?
HZ: ere’s a social app called
WeChat, which everyone in China
has. Everyone gets a QR code with
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January 1, 2021
32 33
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January 1, 2021
34 35
kind of it. I worked as a designer and I hit a point in my
career, about three years in, where I wanted a change. I
decided to apply to grad school in Europe. I visited most
of the places I applied to in Holland and didn’t get into
any of them. I applied to the University of Reading in En-
gland, never visited, and it was the one place I got into,
which was for an MA in Typeface Design. Why they ac-
cepted me, I have no idea, there was no merit there. And
I really wasn’t sure I wanted to go. A good friend of mine
told me that sometimes things just happen for a reason
and that I should go, so I went. I packed my bags in two
suitcases, ew to England, lived in a dorm, and had an
amazing experience. When I went though, the only real
goal I had was going to grad school. ere was no fore-
sight. I gured I would just take whatever I learn from
grad school and work it out from there. When I graduat-
ed, I somehow got a job at Haus and moved to Delaware,
and that’s prey much when I knew I was going to stick
with type design.
CE: How did you decide to make your own type foundry?
BK: My business partner in XYZ is Jesse Ragan. When
I was at Haus, I hired Jesse for a bunch of jobs, and
when I le Haus, Jesse hired me for a bunch of jobs, so
we had this strong working relationship. We had sim-
ilar experience levels and weren’t working for a found-
ry, so it made sense for us to start our own foundry. We
wanted to have ownership of our own thing and our own
destiny, but wanted it under a structure that wasn’t just
our own personal companies, just freelance designing.
CE: Who do you sell your fonts to?
Our stu is on a bunch of dierent distributors, you
know. Adobe, Adobe Fonts, Type Network, they all sell
our fonts. We have our own site too where you can buy
fonts. e thing is, we don’t always know who buys and
uses our stu. We see our fonts being used sometimes so
that’s normally how we nd out.
CE: What’s the coolest place you’ve seen your fonts being
used?
BK: We saw our font Cortado used in a John Mayer mu-
sic video as a fake karaoke background. e “New Light”
music video, that’s what it was. When we saw it we were
like, “Wait… holy shit.” ere was no connection be-
tween us and John Mayer, they just chose to use our font
for some reason.
CE: Dang that’s crazy.
I’ve actually seen one of my other fonts, Balto, on a bus.
Anytime you can draw a typeface that ends up on a bus,
it’s prey awesome.
CE: So, how’d you get into teaching?
BK: I’ve been seriously teaching since 2006, so about
een years. My practice has always been tied to teach-
ing. I’ve taught at Haus Industries, at the University of
Delaware, and I’ve been at WashU since 2013. Selshly,
teaching is something I really enjoy. I kind of view as an
essential part of my practice at this point, meaning that
teaching keeps me grounded. Teaching keeps me sur-
prised. Teaching forces me to reevaluate my assumptions
on a daily basis in a way that not teaching doesn’t, so I
nd it really valuable. I think that a smarter version of me
probably wouldn’t be teaching, because it requires a lot
of time. You know, I could be drawing fonts. While it in-
forms my practice it also steals from it, but it’s something
I nd hard to walk away from.
CE: How has COVID aected you as a professor?
BK: It has added so many layers to my life. I think the
experience is probably very similar between being a stu-
dent and a professor right now. I have a feeling that the
amount of time it takes to understand what to do and
prepare is more for both of us. You know, it is really not
as satisfying at all. In some ways, it’s a weird blessing be-
cause we now all realize that actually being in person has
value. I enjoy having less of a commute, yeah. But I des-
perately miss the classroom. As an art student, you knew
the classroom was a place where you could just walk
in and make stu. As a professor, I could walk into the
classroom and just teach, and I didn’t have to think about
Interview With a Professor:
Ben Kiel
by Cameron Ekstrand
CE: When did you realize that type design was something
you love?
BK: As an undergrad I fell in love with leerpress print-
ing. As a consequence and actually before that, in high
school I was really into Emigre magazine (a graphic de-
sign magazine from the 1980s to early 2000s) because I
was a big nerd. I would get Emigre, I would set my high
school newspaper in Emigre, which by the way was a ter-
rible design choice. And so I was interested in type and
my graphic design practice never really moved past be-
ing fully typographic. In my graphic design practice, it’s
a lot of book work or working with artists where the im-
age is the thing being displayed, but it’s not about cre-
ating images with photography or illustration, mostly
type as image. As a senior project, I designed a typeface
as an undergrad. If it had anything going for it, what it
had was that it made every possible mistake a typeface
could. at’s its only redeemable aribute. e project
itself was fun because, well the typeface was horrendous,
but I made a series of animations of the process and oth-
er dumb stu. I distinctly remember at my nal review
of the typeface, one of the reviewers asked me if I would
ever make another typeface and I said “no.” So that was
Ben Kiel was my professor for Typography last semester (Jude asked for me to explain what typography is, so here: typogra-
phy is the art of fonts/text. It is making and using text as a form of art or design). I quickly realized Ben was more than just
a professor aer he gave a presentation of some of his work in our rst class. He is the co-owner of XYZ Type and has worked
for numerous other famous companies in the typography eld. You can see his love for graphic design and typography through
his jokes about fonts and formaing that I, personally, never really understand. His work and passion for what he does is a
testament to Sam Fox’s commitment to hiring real professionals, not just teachers.
the SCENE
January 1, 2021
36 37
Worthe Numerals
Retail Typeface
For sale at House Industries
Dala Prisma
Retail Typeface
Desgined for Commerical Type
Based on Dala Floda by Paul Barnes
it because I was condent in my teaching. Now, every-
thing has to be produced, edited, communicated in like
twelve dierent ways to make things clear for everyone.
I had to spend a lot of my summer taking classes to get
beer at online teaching, and, well, winter break wasn’t
a break for us. I, too, am bummed that we don’t have a
spring break. It’s a grind. I can’t wait to be back.
CE: Yeah, I used to hate having to get up to go to class, but
now I’d kill to be back to normal even if it meant going to my
8 AM Calc lectures.
BK: (laughs) Okay now that’s a lile weird. Actually, I
think I’d go to a morning Calc lecture too, it’s hard just
siing in front of the screen.
CE: I just feel like I have no reason to not be distracted when
I’m in a Zoom lecture.
BK: Exactly, as a teacher I need to be focused on the class
at all times. I nd things like the Zoom chat to be really
fun, but also just so distracting. I mean, to sum it up, it’s
a lot.
CE: What would be your pitch to get students to take a Ty-
pography class?
BK: at’s an easy pitch. Our primary way of interacting
with the world right now is through text. Having an un-
derstanding of how to use text on a piece of paper or on a
screen is an applicable skill for anyone. Whether you dig
deep into it or you just stop spacing twice aer a period
in Word, I think having that understanding of communi-
cating with type seing is so valuable no maer what.
CE: Anything else you want to add?
BK: Well, back to the whole Covid and teaching thing, I
will say that while having to do a lot more work now is
annoying, I am grateful to be in the position that I am. It’s
a privilege of mine to be able to complain that I need to
do more work. In the grand scheme of things, given the
losses people have suered and everything we’ve been
through, I have nothing to complain about.
Cortado
Designed by Ben Kiel and Jesse Ragan
Originally for Aldo Shoes, now a retail typeface
Ballast v0.1
Retail Typeface
For sale at Future Fonts
the SCENE
January 1, 2021
38 39
a potential passenger exit. While I
can’t speak for other residents of the
Moonrise, I don’t think that it lived
up to the level of community that
Umrath fostered. e state of social
life in the Moonrise denitely pushed
me to be more proactive in making
plans for myself.
I will never forget my semester in
the Moonrise. It summarized what
college life in a pandemic needed to
be like to ensure safety. I also cannot
thank the Moonrise sta enough for
making the hotel as welcoming and
comfortable as possible (Mr. Mosby
and Esteban would be proud). While
it was strange at times, living in a ho-
tel was a unique and certainly memo-
rable experience to say the least.
The Suite Life:
Living in the Moonrise Hotel
by Bradley Mellis
You may know the Moonrise as the
quirky hotel topped with a spinning
Moon on e Loop. I stayed there
during my visit to campus as a senior
in highschool, and when I le, I g-
ured it was unlikely I’d nd myself in
that hotel again. But life is unpredict-
able, and the chaos of 2020 had some
strange consequences. My intuition
when I le St. Louis back in 2018
was ultimately incorrect, because this
year, the Moonrise was my home.
Moving into ResLife last semester
was a far cry from semesters past. In
a year that was extremely abnormal,
it was only ing that I received a
housing assignment just as strange.
Let me walk you through my rst
day.
If you can recall, WashU issued a
strict move-in and testing protocol
which required students living on
campus to get tested before they of-
cially moved into their respective
housing. Aer nishing up packing
the night before my departure from
New York, I realized it would be
dicult to lug my bags to and from
the testing site. en I remembered
I was living in a hotel, and hotels
are staed with people to help with
that exact problem. I called up the
front desk, and the concierge cour-
teously informed me that I could
just leave my bags with them. Af-
ter I arrived in St. Louis, I stopped
at the hotel, my “dorm,” to drop o
my bags, then headed to campus
to get tested. When I returned to
the hotel from the testing site, my
bags were no longer in the lobby.
To my surprise, when I opened the
door to my room, my bags were
neatly stacked at the foot of my king-
sized bed. Aer taking a quick look
around, I remembered my rst vis-
it to campus. ere were the same
moon themed decorations, comfort-
able blue chairs, and a mid-sized
atscreen TV. e panoramic view
of the loop combined with the sil-
houee of downtown St. Louis in
the distance welcomed me back to
school, and was as impressive as I
remembered. Aer puing my things
down on my desk, I poked my head
into the bathroom, which was guard-
ed by a frosted glass door. I was in
awe. e bathroom was coated in
marble, and I noticed I had both a
rainfall shower and a jacuzzi bathtub.
At that point, I realized I was going to
be living the Suite Life.
Living in a nice hotel had its obvious
perks. In contrast to life in Umrath
on the South 40, the Moonrise took
care of everything. Room, laundry,
and cleaning services were all pro-
vided and took o some of the daily
burdens of maintaining a room. Ad-
ditionally, the location and environ-
ment within the Moonrise made life
prey easy. Living on e Loop gave
me easy access to all of the restau-
rants and stores, as well as Forest
Park. e rooop of the building was
also a great place to relax and catch
the sunset on a warm night.
Even though I did enjoy the hotel’s
conveniences, life in the Moonrise
wasn’t all glitz and glam. e nature
of online classes made it dicult to
escape the room, and the distance
from campus discouraged me from
consistently using the amenities pro-
vided by WashU, like the athletic
center and the various libraries. e
most challenging aspect of living in a
hotel room, by far, was the absence
of a kitchen. I tried to buy grocer-
ies from United Provisions on e
Loop, but my options were limited,
and my meals became instantly re-
petitive. Additionally, it became in-
creasingly annoying to clean my one
white china bowl (provided by the
front desk), which I did in the bath-
room sink. Without dining applianc-
es, I found myself eating o of reused
salami packaging, as it’s cardboard
frame oered a slight resemblance to
a plate. Fortunately, I had access to
a student menu at Eclipse, the hotel
restaurant, as well as campus-to-ho-
tel meal delivery service. While these
were mediocre solutions, I denite-
ly missed out on the ease of quickly
making a meal before class or satisfy-
ing a late night craving.
Social life in the Moonrise was also
far from what I expected. Other than
the name tags taped to everyone’s
front doors, you’d never know that
the Moonrise was serving as a col-
lege dorm. ere was hardly ever
any music or hallway antics that I
was accustomed to in Umrath fresh-
man year. Common spaces were un-
derutilized and almost always empty.
e lack of social interaction in the
Moonrise was so bad that people de-
veloped a habit of walking straight
into elevators without pausing to let
the SCENE
January 1, 2021
40 41
ny-ish…). e experience was soul-crushing. I had taken
advice to break my lectures up into roughly twenty-min-
ute blocks, but aer each block I felt as exhausted as I
usually did aer a full eighty-minute lecture, but without
the positive reinforcement of having just been on stage.
en, aer each recording, I would play back each mini
lecture to take notes on whether or not I had made errors
that needed to be edited out. And then I needed to rest
before starting the next lecture. On average, I wound up
spending three hours in the classroom for every hour of
nished product.
ree weeks into June, it was clear that my original plan
to nish my courses by the end of the month had been
hopelessly naïve. June slipped into July, and into August
and September. Over the course of the 14 weeks of break
, I spent 11 weeks and about 220 hours in the basement of
Siegle Hall in “my” classroom (which the Learning Cen-
ter had kindly set aside for me for the whole summer).
September was brutal because I realized that I was a bit
behind schedule to nish before classes started (aer
which time I could not be sure of having access to the
classroom). I nished my last recording around 11 PM on
the evening just before the rst day of class.
As I was slogging through the process of recording my
lectures, by midsummer it was clear that I needed to give
some thought as to the organization of the class. I real-
ly didn’t have a clue about what to do. I read a bunch of
“best practices” but they were mostly designed for small-
er classes. So rather than dive into methodology, I decid-
ed to sele on some core principles that would drive my
decisions. In an email to students at the end of July, I told
them that these principles were:
1. Minimizing the risk to the health and safety of all class
participants.
2. Ensuring that they all learn something.
3. Minimizing their academic stress as they navigated this
very unusual learning environment.
4. Ensuring equity so that all students have the same
course experience.
Consequently, the class was totally asynchronous except
for an optional weekly discussion section (that most stu-
dents opted out of ). I told them that my only aspiration
for the class was for them to learn something, and that
we share the experience of geing through this very dis-
ruptive period in a way that recognizes our common hu-
manity. Regarding equity, I told them that there may be a
whole range of disparities that some or many of us may
experience. We are dispersed around the world and may
be in very dierent time zones. Not all of us may have re-
liable access to the internet. Not all of us may be able to
predict when and where they will have a quiet workplace
suitable for learning. Some of us may get sick, or have
family members who may get sick. Some of us may be
disproportionately aected by social or economic factors
either related or unrelated the COVID pandemic. And so
I chose not to do things that would “improve” the class if
it meant that some people couldn’t fully participate. To
reduce stress, I opted for many short quizzes instead of
Essay from a Professor:
Reections On a Dystopian Semester
by David Strait
I began to panic about the Fall, 2020 semester back in
late April. We had just passed the pandemic’s Spring
peak and I was hunkered down on my farm with my
wife, daughter, and my octogenarian mother, whom I
had extracted from New York City about a month ear-
lier. rough a scheduling quirk, I was not teaching that
Spring, which meant that I had not experienced the crash
into Zoom that was consuming the lives of so many col-
leagues and students. I was thankful for that, but it also
meant that I felt terribly unprepared to teach in the Fall.
I didn’t know how to schedule a Zoom meeting, let alone
teach a class. Moreover, my teaching style involves a
lot of drawing (I probably use the document camera as
much or more than any other professor on campus) and
I had no idea how to do that in an online medium. Would
I need a tablet and a stylus? What soware would I use?
And by the late Spring it was also perfectly clear to me
that I would not be teaching in person in the Fall. I was
slated to teach two large lecture classes (Introduction to
Human Evolution and Principles of Anatomy & Devel-
opment) and although the university had not yet made
any announcements about teaching modalities it was ob-
vious that nothing was going to involve packing 300 stu-
dents into a lecture hall.
It was against this backdrop that I had a phone conver-
sation with Dean Jennifer Smith, who told me that the
university was investing resources into ing certain
classrooms with tools (special cameras and soware)
that would facilitate the recording of lectures for online,
asynchronous learning. is would allow me to record
lectures in a university classroom (with all of the technol-
ogy to which I was accustomed) and the students would
be able to toggle back and forth between a view of the
screen and a view of me standing in front of the room (as
if in a normal class). is was great! I immediately decid-
ed that this was how I was going deliver course content.
I had no idea how I was going to manage an online class,
but I would put o those considerations until later.
e classrooms became available in early June, and I
started on June 9th. I booked a room from 10AM until
4PM for every day in June, and gured that this would
be enough time to run through all of my lectures for both
courses. I could not have been more wrong….
On my very rst day I received an excellent tutorial on
how to congure the camera and use the special record-
ing soware from the incredibly helpful sta from the
Learning Center, who were overseeing the use of the
classrooms. en I started recording my rst lecture…
and it was awful. I screwed up a bunch of times because
of technical issues, but that wasn’t the biggest problem.
e big problem was that it turns out that it is really hard
(at least, for me) to lecture to an empty room. Lecturing
is like giving a performance on stage, and there is some-
thing about standing in front of a crowd of people that
gets my adrenaline pumping and also sharpens my mind.
is is what gives me the condence to go into a lecture
without being over-prepared, knowing that when I get
on stage the words will come out in the right way; and
I’ll know how to use my visual aids; and I’ll be able to
ad-lib eectively; and that I can tell personal stories as
tangents; and that I’ll be funny (insofar as dad jokes are
funny…). Recording these lectures was totally dierent.
Without the energy of performing for a crowd, I felt like
I was reciting memorized lines (which I would constantly
mess up) and I denitely wasn’t funny (maybe I was fun-
the SCENE
January 1, 2021
42 43
full exams, and I made them fully open book with two
and half days to complete each quiz. And I didn’t create
assignments to enhance “engagement” because I didn’t
want to give anyone any extra tasks that would suck up
time.
Did these steps make the class “easier?” Absolutely. Am I
repentant? Absolutely not. Incidentally, have I mentioned
that I have tenure…? But, in all seriousness, now is not
the time to be pedantic about assessments and metrics.
e world is a dumpster re. Everything sucks. Let all try
to learn some things that are going to make the world a
beer place and make us beer people and citizens, and
let’s be good to each other while we do that.
Once the semester started, I felt oddly disconnected from
the courses, because students were engaging with course
content that I had produced months earlier. And, because
we were asynchronous, I mostly met with students during
oce hours, which were quite fun but only involved a
fraction of the class. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention
that I was assisted by Dr. Rose Hores. She managed both
of my classes on Canvas and without her I would have
been a puddle of tears. e students never saw her, but
their experience in the class was improved immeasurably
by her actions.
So were the classes a success? I warned students in my
summer email that the courses were not going to be as
good as they usually were. And they weren’t. But in the
course evaluations, one word stood out in the word
clouds derived from the student comments:
Interesting. I’ll take that eight days a week. Mission ac-
complished.
